LCD

Sharp is a large Japanese electronics firm that has been struggling of late. The company has a LCD panel making arm and people who claim to be familiar with workings at the company are saying that Sharp is looking to spin that LCD arm off. To get the funds it needs to spin the LCD arm off, Sharp is said to be courting an investment fund handled by the Japanese government.

More than half a decade ago, an odd-named company became the center of attention and hype because of the promised holy grail of LCD displays. And although Pixel Qi was able to deliver, to some extent, that much sought after readability in whatever lighting condition, the company has failed to make a profit, enough to sustain its business in a viciously competitive display business. But while it has yet to issue a formal admission, provided the company actually does still exist, for all intents and purposes and as far as official communication channels go, Pixel Qi is practically no more.

Depending on your age, you might have played with a toy called a Magnetic Writing Board - called a "Magna-Doodle" by Fisher-Price. You drew pictures on a board with a special magnetic stylus and erased whatever you wrote with a swipe of another movable bar in the toy. Now we're seeing a device called the Boogie Board Play N' Trace that does something very similar, but here with a digital interface and a transparent area to draw and write. All it needs is a couple AA batteries.

Despite living in a digital age, we will never really be able to get rid of the need for physical printouts, whether for documents, photos, or, in this case, labels. Brother, who makes all kinds of printers for every need and whim, is announcing a new label maker, the latest in its P-Touch series. What makes the PT-D600 different from its D400 predecessor is that it has a full color LCD screen, which gives users a WYSIWYG idea of their label printout.

Earlier than the projected 2017 launch, Sharp has just revealed that it has a tablet ready for 2015 bearing a new mix of display technologies. Bearing Qualcomm's MEMS and Sharp's IGZO, this still unnamed tablet will boast of high-speed display on thin panels with almost the same energy-saving efficiency of e-ink in greyscale mode when needed.

DisplayMate, who has been singing Samsung's praises for quite some time now, has something new to chew on. Now that iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are out in the wild, it can get its tests running again on the new smartphones from the company that started the whole "Retina" trend. And the results might surprise you.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that if you wanted a curved Samsung display you'd need to cough up thousands for one of its huge TVs, but a 27-inch display could bring some flexed screen tech to your desktop. The Samsung S27D590C isn't going to impress guests to quite the same extent as a 60-inch curved Ultra HD OLED might, but the claim is more immersive gaming and entertainment on a more domestic scale.

Many displays on mobile devices are LCD, a technology that’s a bit long in the tooth. Sharp, in conjunction with Qualcomm, is working to create a new type of display, one they hope will forge a new path for small displays. Called MEMS-IGZO, the new display tech leans on the hard work of both companies equally.

Alienware's Area-51 gaming desktop isn't the only extreme product the company has today. Joining the triangular monster in the usual form-factor stakes is the Dell UltraSharp 34-inch Monitor (U3415W), the company's first curved display, targeting gamers as well as game developers.

Acer has taken the wraps off of its latest gaming notebooks, the Aspire V Nitro series, along with a clutch of new 4K2K and WQHD displays for those who demand extra pixels. Powered by a choice of 4th- or 5th-gen Intel Core processors paired with NVIDIA GeForce graphics up to GTX 860M, the Aspire V Nitro range will be offered in 15- and 17-inch sizes, with the range topped by the Aspire V Nitro-Black Edition.

As reactions to Google Glass show, the world isn't ready for ungainly wearable displays, but NVIDIA and researchers from the University of North Carolina think they've come up with a far more aesthetically pleasing - and discrete - alternative. Pinlight Displays promise not only to be far less clunky than suspending a tiny screen in front of the wearer, but offer a far broader field-of-view in the process, and even do it all cheaper than standard wearable displays.

Sharp is sick of square screens, and while circular LCDs are yet to make any sort of significant dent in the market, the company is already looking at Free-Form Display technology that can be cut into any shape. Targeting next-gen digital dashboards in cars, unusual wearables - in the vein of Motorola's circular Moto 360 - among other things, the magic is in how Sharp has integrated the electronics throughout the panel.